


Decay

by suliel



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: Could be X Reader, Death, F/M, Minor Character Death, unrequited pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 05:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14301465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suliel/pseuds/suliel
Summary: He never spoke to her, but he had admired her. He found himself looking forward to seeing her again, after being gone so long— but came back to find nothing but a fresh grave.





	Decay

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus Christ, the amount of muse I have for Raistlin Majere is absolutely alarming. Enjoy this vague, depressing drabble because I can’t get this bab out of my head

There was something furitive about the way he liked her. How he would admire her at a safe distance, appreciate the small things that made her so... her.

The way her braid was always a little untidy, a little thick and lopsided, that one, spirally section of hair at the front that never quite made it into the braid nor stayed tucked behind her ear for any length of time.

She was always distracted from her work by something or other— a passing butterfly, the wind-blown clouds above, some wild idea that bloomed in her expression as a free smile. It was that distant and dreamy look in her eyes that he craved to see; the innocent and enchanted distance from which she viewed her world.

Many a time his brother had come and seen his short glances or long stares at her from down the street, or across the field, and egged him on to talk to the fair maiden. “Just go say hello,” He would encourage, all brass and bronze and bravery and brawn. “Talk to her. She might like you just the same.”

And, every time in response, he would answer no. No, because being acknowledged by her was... intimidating. No, because she was beautiful from afar, and he was afraid that upon speaking to her that she would suddenly, somehow, become unattractive— whether by coarseness of voice or cruelty of personality. Because he was afraid of disturbing that beautiful look of distant, distracted peace, that he mind scare her into a more upsetting expression. Even worse, he feared she already knew him and found him creepy or humiliating. So he said no, no, he’s happy to see her from a distance, happy to watch her smile at things other than him.

And after a while, he moved on in his life, to more engaging things, to more inmediate things. He and his brother went off on adventures and years passed, he went and changed and only occasionally thought of the girl with the messy braid and distant eyes.

And one day he came home, and thought immediately of her; he was both afraid and curious of seeing her with his new eyes, and ventured near one of her frequent hiding places.

But it was empty and dusty, and he wondered if perhaps she had grown up too. If she had lost the dreamy look in her eyes, if she braided her hair with more care, if she tucked it all back neat and clean.

But when he went into town and had his brother ask for her, he found out something both worse and not.

“I’m sorry,” His brother spoke to him softly. “But... she’d been sick for two years and... passed on last spring. They buried her in the flower gardens her family owned.”

He felt a strange stillness in his mind. Good. He wouldn’t have to see her decaying before his cursed eyes. His curse would not affect how he saw her.

But he would never again see her. Hear her laugh at her own thoughts. See her tuck her hair back for the thousandth time. He’d never even spoken to her. What did her voice sound like? He knew her laugh, but it didn’t feel like enough.

“Raistlin? Are you alright?”

He looked to his brother and shrugged.

“I am fine. Where exactly did they bury her?”

“The meadow by the well. Her aunt told me they marked her grave by planting a willow sapling.”

He turned in his heel and started towards the old well. He wished bitterly now that he had just spoken to her, even just once, to ask her about the weather or her flowers or... anything. He was bitter, angry with himself for letting her escape him.

He was so entrenched in his sour thoughts that he nearly walked straight past the spindly sapling a good 50 feet from the well.

He stopped, looking down at the tree. It looked dead to him. Rotten. Cadaverous. But by the general shape of it, he surmised that it was likely a healthy young sapling. The leaves looked skeletal and black in his eyes, but as he reached out to touch them, he felt the soft, tender and fresh buds of spring a moment before the sensation crumbled away from him.

This was her.

All that was left of her.

A sapling whose beauty he couldn’t even appreciate.

He knelt down on the ground. He could feel the wildflower blooms under his robes. He couldn’t see them.

She loved flowers so much. Cupping the bright blooms in her hands as a milk pail lay abandoned at her side. He’d been watching her that day from the shade of an oak tree, his sister reading a book to him. She had held the colorful blooms in her hands like precious jewels, her eyes wide and admiring.

But today... he saw no color in them. They lay dead at his feet.

She had loved growing things. Her garden, the calves and kittens in the village, spring saplings and chicks, the fresh buds on the great sprawling trees of their home village.

Anger sparked and festered in his chest for a moment.

He could see no growing things. Only death. Decay.

He was glad she was dead. She would have hated him. He was the opposite of everything he’d ever watched her love from afar. Bitter, sickly, colorless, surrounded by death.

“Brother...”

Raistlin stood, cutting off his brother’s concerned interjection.

“No point mourning the dead,” He snapped sharply, dusting the grass from his robes with what strength he had. “Let’s leave.”

“But she was...” Caramon started softly, his tone tense and worried.

“It doesn’t matter anymore!” Raistlin snapped back in irritation. “She’s dead. Let’s go!”

Caramon sighed and turned to walk away. As soon as his brother wasn’t looking, Raistlin turned around and set a letter at the base of the tree.

The letter had been for her.

A confession.

An apology.

An explination.

And now he left it to decay with her, the memory of her smile now fleeting and unreachable in his mind.


End file.
